Still hope for a volunteer ambulance service at Goodooga

The New South Wales Ambulance Service says Goodooga's vehicle has been removed because no one volunteered to run the local service.

No paramedics are stationed in the north western town, and the community had been warned the ambulance would go unless a volunteer service could be established.

The local Health Council says it does not understand why the vehicle was removed without notice in December when a team of volunteers was ready to be trained.

The region's Deputy Director of Ambulance Operations, John Stonestreet, says the six to eight people who expressed interest did not fill in the paperwork.

"I've had a District Inspector up there several times to try and get some application forms filled out," he said.

"We've even engaged a station officer at Lightning Ridge to go across and assist people to fill out applications but unfortunately no one has come forward to complete those applications or submitted them to the ambulance service."

He says the vehicle has hardly been used as there is no one to drive it.

"The ambulance hasn't actually been used for over two years because the health service staff haven't been able to drive it.

"An indication of figures that we have been able to get there may be one job a month on average in Goodooga," he said.

Mr Stonestreet says it is still possible a volunteer service could be established in Goodooga.

"We would probably look at a Community First Responder system, given the low work load, which is where we train people up the same as volunteers and provide a limited amount of equipment that's stored at a central area."

However he says the community would have to shows it is committed.

"It's a big commitment from the community and what we find is that small communities such as Goodooga and the like find it extremely difficult to be able to sustain such groups.

"There needs to be at least a minimum of six people to share the load because people want to go away and have work and those sorts of things," he said.

Free trade is the oldest argument in federal politics and the issue that literally defined the federation era but opposition exists to the TPP, courtesy of the Investor-State Dispute Resolutions clause.